Articles - Tagged as 'training'

Several of Global Health Trials' Regional Faculties have implemented exceptional, cost-effective blended learning schemes, using a computer room and the Global Health Network's free eLearning courses to create a novel way of building their research teams' skills and knowledge. The Nigerian faculty explain their experiences here, and you can download their "how to" document on the right hand side of the screen, to use at your own site!

This Guide to Efficient Trial Management, published by the Trial Manager's Network (UK) and available freely online, is a must for all trial managers or coordinators. This link is for the 5th Edition (2016)

The TDR Global Competency Framework for Clinical Research is a flexible framework which lists all the competencies that should be demonstrated by a research team to carry out a successful clinical study. It can be used for any research study, regardless of the size of the team and of the study itself. It can help to plan the staffing requirements for a study, to help carry out appraisals of staff, to help individuals plan their career development, and to help to develop educational curricula for research staff.

The Good Participatory Practice (GPP) Guidelines were developed by AVAC and UNAIDS. They provide trial funders, sponsors, and implementers with systematic guidance on how to effectively engage with all stakeholders in the design and conduct of biomedical HIV prevention trials. The guidelines are available in multiple languages. AVAC has also developed an array of supplementary GPP tools tools.

Authors conducted a systematic survey of the methodological literature to identify recommended approaches for how and what randomised clinical trial (RCT) authors should report on missing participant data and, on the basis of these approaches, to propose guidance for RCT authors. Most identified approaches invite trial authors to report the extent of MPD and the underlying reasons. Fewer approaches focus on reporting missingness patterns, methods for handling MPD and implications of MPD on results.

New INTERGROWTH-21st Postnatal Growth Standards charts for individual measurements of length, weight, head circumference, as well as a combined standards chart for length, weight and head circumference are now available for download here.

Training manuals from REACT study in Cameroon. REACT Cameroon designed six training modules to support the introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). The manuals were used to train health workers at government and mission hospitals and health centres. The six modules are presented in two manuals

Scientific title: A cost-effectiveness analysis of provider interventions to improve health worker practice in providing treatment for uncomplicated malaria in Cameroon. Testing patients before prescribing medication is important, and should ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment. This is important because unnecessary and inappropriate treatment has costs –incurred by patients, but also governments and donors working to control malaria.

Field trials of interventions against disease in low and middle income countries (LMICs) may be complex and expensive undertakings. This 3rd edition of the Field Trials Toolbox has been compiled by over 30 contributors with extensive direct experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of field trials in LMICs, and it attempts to document their accumulated experience for the guidance of those who might undertake field trials of health interventions. It can be read in its entirety as an introduction to the field and/or can serve as a reference volume during each of the different stages of planning, conducting, and analysing a field trial.

Grant applications differ substantially depending on the individual funding organisation, and each funding organisation has its own organisational aims, which are important to understand when you are considering which grant to apply to.In this article we provide practical tips and information for writing grant applications, which can be applied to grant applications of all sorts, from fellowships to large funding applications.

Fetal Growth Standards for ultrasound measurements of head circumference (HC), bi-parietal diameter (BPD), occipito-frontal diameter (OFD), femur length (FL) and abdominal circumference (AC) are now available for download.
For information about how to perform these measurements, or for other information on standards in ultrasound imaging, please see the ultrasound training toolkit.

Job interviews can be intimidating, but simply preparing well can make the difference between succeeding or failing, regardless of how nervous you are. In this article we pull together advice on how to prepare for job interviews and how to know what questions you’ll be asked.

Despite published guidance on writing the abstract in the PRISMA Statement guiding the reporting of systematic reviews in general and elsewhere, evaluations show that reporting of systematic reviews in journal and conference abstracts is poor. Teh authors developed consensus-based reporting guidelines as an extension to the PRISMA Statement on good reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in abstracts.

Research misconduct is a global problem as research is a global activity. Wherever there is human activity there is misconduct, but we lack reliable data on the extent and distribution of research misconduct. This PLoS paper seeks to illustrate some examples of researsch misconduct in LMICs.

In this article, the authors illustrate five basic statistical concepts that can significantly impact the interpretation of the medical literature and its application to the care of patients, drawing examples from the vaccine literature: (i) consider clinical and statistical significance separately, (ii) evaluate absolute risks rather than relative risks, (iii) examine confidence intervals rather than p values, (iv) use caution when considering isolated significant p values in the setting of multiple testing, and (v) keep in mind that statistically nonsignificant results may not exclude clinically important benefits or harms.

Transnational Working Group on Data management of the ECRIN, the European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network, present recommendations for quality and harmonisation for data management. In addition good data management practices in general are identified.

In determining the feasibility of establishing a biorepository at your facility, there are several key factors to consider. But first, there are a few that must be in place before commencing. They are:

The commitment of your institutional

The trust of the community within which you work

Informed consents that allow specimens to be used for multiple research studies

Vision/commitment for the distribution and sharing of biospecimens and data with the wider scientific community

We attach here the facility checklist for biospecimen collection and storage, organized by topic, along with the relevant Best Practices from ISBER, for assessing the readiness your facility. The purpose of these checklists are to 1) identify any potential barriers to setting up long-term storage of biospecimens on site; and 2) enable you to take action, as needed.

This guidance article aims to provide a fully comprehensive, pragmatic guide for researchers of all roles, but especially ethics reviewers, to explain the details of each type of ethics review. The article is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese, and has been kindly provided by www.ctmagnifier.org.

The process of obtaining informed consent continues to be a contentious issue in clinical and public health research carried out in resource-limited settings. We sought to evaluate this process among human research participants in randomly selected active research studies approved by the School of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.

Five seed documents are provided here for use in clinical research, which can be adapted and altered for each study. Here we provide a template concept protocol, a study protocol, a CRF, an informed consent form, and a generic SOP.

It is a recommendation of some IRB/ECs that back translation is included as a necessary step for the translation of some clinical trial documentation, including informed consent documents. This article explains the reasons for back translation, and takes you through how to effectively perform this step, including explaining how to find a suitable translator for the task.

During the setting up of our trial in Cameroon we met several operational issues that we needed to overcome. For some of these issues we developed some tools and we have made them available here so that other research groups can use them in their clinical trials.

An article about a workshop that assessed ethical review and informed consent in vulnerable populations. This article aims to prompt a debate leading to better guiding principles on health research in constrained settings

This article was written by a researcher from Sri Lanka and presents a very helpful overview on Biomedical Ethics. This article will be helpful to all levels of research staff and others who might want an accessible overview